Hearing the phrase “cogito ergo sum” or “I am thinking, therefore I exist” brought back memories from world history class in high school when we went over philosophers and scientists. I remember writing down this phrase in my notebook and the fact that he was a great mathematician, but I did not give much thought about it until I read Discourse on Method. I had to read the section a few times to grasp the point Descartes was trying to make. He says on page 15, “I observed that the proposition ‘I am thinking, there I exist’ has nothing about it to assure me that I am speaking the truth, when I assert it, except that I see very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist.” I believe he is trying to say that for everything we understand in life in a very clear manner has to be true. Everything we know in life like our existences had to come from somewhere or someone. We could not have created it from nothingness. Someone or something had to influence us or put those thoughts into our mind and this someone or something has to be perfect or why else would we believe them. “So the only possibility left was that the idea had been out into me by something that truly was more perfect than I was, something indeed having every perfection of which I could have any idea,” stated by Descartes (page 16). He believes this perfect someone to be God. This is where I was a little shocked. From the beginning of the reading, I thought he was discussing in a more logical and rational thinking, but then he brings up faith and God. I was not brought up in a religious household, and I do not label myself under any categories but I do have to disagree with Descartes on this idea that God is perfect and all of our ideas and thoughts come from him. He wrote, “It follows that our ideas or notions, being real things that get from God everything that is vivid and clear in them, must be true in every respect in which they are vivid and clear,” (page 17). He then states that if we do have wrong ideas or thoughts, it is because we are imperfect, which in a way I do agree because no one is perfect. I also thought it was truly interesting that he brings in geometry, a mathematic that can be proven and relates it back to a religious figure God.